Even the great Cadogan of Wellington’s army, the Prince of Q.M.G.’s, might have well been appalled by the task which the commissariat department of this heterogeneous collection of races and religions represented. The Pathans, being Mohammedans, will drink no wine or spirits; the Sikhs, who have their own religion, may drink wine, but may not smoke; the Gurkhas may do both, but have other ceremonial practices which must be scrupulously observed. Beef is anathema to the Hindu, bacon to the Mohammedan; indeed, pork in any form is abhorrent to all save the lowest caste of Indian. Therefore, the flesh of goats, slain in a prescribed ritual form, and specially prepared, had to take the place of the bully-beef ration for the majority of the Indian contingent. There was no rum ration for the Mohammedan, no cigarette or tobacco ration for the Sikh. Though the commissariat question has proved a continual source of difficulty to the military authorities, it has been satisfactorily solved, and the Indians, from the standpoint of food, have fared well. On this campaign they made the acquaintance of ration jam, which they like immensely. The Gurkhas will not touch marmalade, although they are as fond of jam as the rest of the Indians are. They are very keen on their cigarette rations. The army supplies the Indian troops with _ghi_, or clarified butter, which they use extensively in cooking, and with Indian corn, from which they bake their _chupatties_, thin wafer-like cakes cooked in the ashes of the camp-fire. You can imagine what an epoch-making adventure it was to these thousands of Indians, living their carefully ordered lives in one of the oldest civilizations of the world, to be suddenly transplanted into the civilization of the white man. For the first time they have seen the white man served by his own race. For the first time they have seen the white man pursuing those agricultural avocations which, in agricultural India, are carried on exclusively by the native. For the first time they have seen the white man at close quarters in his home. Agriculturist as every Indian is, it is the life of the French peasant that has primarily absorbed his interest in things outside the war. The prodigious size of the cows, in comparison with the small Indian kine, overwhelms him with admiration; so also the heavy Flemish horses. He is amazed to find himself surrounded on all sides by _pukka_ houses--that is to say, houses with tiled roofs and timber flooring and lath-and-plaster walls and glazed windows--to see that even the lowliest French peasant can aspire to dwellings like these.